Another Week Gone...

Remember those pictures of Mark's first steps I promised last week? Well, it didn't happen. He will stand on his own for upwards of five seconds. He'll walk beside me down the hall, holding just my index finger. But he won't take his first steps. Maybe he's saving them for something really great. Or maybe he just doesn't want to perform on command.

I don't perform on demand.
So stick that in your pipe and smoke it!

Mark did very clearly say "no, no, no" in mimic to my telling him not to touch the fireplace. Guess I'm doing my job. I just hope he learns to walk before he learns to tell me "no" in response to something I've requested.

We got to play outside twice this week, which is always fun for the kids. Grace finally learned that when she pushes her feet on bike pedals, the bike moves! (Sometimes forward, sometimes backward - she learned that too.)


Whoa. I'm not even touching the ground!

Now she only has to use the Flinstones method when she's in her car with Duck.

Or she can just push.

C'mon Duck! Let's cruise!

Duck, next time you have to push!

Grace loves to play in the dirt. An entire backyard of grass and she finds the bare dirt spot to dig her fingers into. Imagine her delight when she found that mommy keeps dirt INSIDE the house too!!!

Imagine my delight at finding her delight! Sigh.

The plant was on the counter. I had just watered it.

Grace decided to pull it back into the sink and drown it.

As it turns out, Mark likes dirt too.

Girls are so inefficient. Why use your fingers when
you can scoop the dirt into your face?

We also discovered that when you combine a blanket and a few chairs, you get a fort:

Welcome to Gracie's! Come on in...

Well, Gracie and I discovered. Mark is still working it all out:

I don't get it. Can we go back outside and find more dirt?

The above picture only serves to remind me that although we may not be going out in public, people might still see my children. So the bumblebee pants with the red, gray and blue cars shirt? Bad idea.

The kids wore me out this week, but we really enjoyed them. Mark is beginning to get so much more personality. I sometimes think their personalities go in growth spurts just like the rest of them. Mark is copying sounds, motions and even emotions. I made Grace stand in the corner today and he crawled up and saw her crying and he started to cry too. It was cute to see him so sympathetic. (Grace didn't think so, but she was in the corner because she had hit Mark over the head with a wooden knife. Funny, that didn't make him cry. I'm afraid he may be getting used to it.)

Grace is also growing emotionally. She finally told me "I love you" (after some prompting from Daddy) and she is beginning to speak in more complete sentences, using the small filler words. One of her favorite lines is "I got it, I got it, I got it!" Usually in reference to zipping up her own pajamas or coat or whatnot. Her latest trick is to move chairs all over the house to help her reach the scissors on my desk, the gas fireplace knob, the mini blind cords, the plant on the kitchen counter, the water faucet above the plant...

If your kids tired you out this week, you're in good company. Hopefully we'll all continue to see more nice spring weather so we can send them outside to get all their energy out. Even if they do happen to eat some dirt along the way.